What a long, strange trip it’s been since that fateful luncheon date.
It turned out that I was not involved in the rehearsals/direction/creation of Long Day’s Journey Into Night as I had hoped/feared. Most of that was due to my lack of initiative, and the remaining was a lack of time during the process. We ran short of time due to having to re-cast the original actor playing James Tyrone, Jr., due to misbehaviour of constant, vaguely annoying varieties (didn’t take direction, constantly changed blocking, experimented with different readings every time, wouldn’t listen to anyone) that got him fired not once, but twice. The second time finally took.
The most appalling thing about the whole experience with him was the fact that this was his final chance with the theatre community, after being ‘kicked out’ of C.A.E.A. several years ago. I actually didn’t think that anyone had their Equity card taken away from them, as it takes a fair bit of misbehaviour to achieve that level of disciplinary action. I think if you personally attack all three of Gordon Pinsent, Robin Phillips, and Christopher Plummer with a meat cleaver… you get very close. This was his chance to re-prove himself – and he knew it! And yet, he was so chemically polluted from his long-term battle with alcoholism he could not even pull it together for a six-week rehearsal process with a Community Theatre company under a director he claimed he respected, performing a script he claimed to know backwards and forwards. Well, he certainly had a deep understanding of an alcoholic actor who had difficulty getting parts due to his reputation, as well as mental health issues stemming from anger management and depression.
So, the role was re-cast and we suddenly had to go back to the start and re-block every scene – thank God the new guy was more than up to the challenge.
The music I was able to dig up was perfect, even though it wasn’t used as frequently as I might have liked. We used one artist a fair bit; a cello sonata at the end of our Act I for Mary’s descent into loneliness; plus a bit of Copland (“Appalachian Spring” — an orchestral arrangement) in between each scene, and skipped music as the final lights went down. A little bit of under-scoring quietly at times is nice, and I really wanted to hear Mary’s lonely cello again at the very end as she sinks completely into her madness induced by an attempted over-dose of morphine. But, that will have to be the show I direct – everyone tells a different version of the same script.
I then went on to be the Assistant to the Director of Pericles, Prince of Tyre for Bard on the Beach’s Douglas Campbell Studio Stage. Never having been produced in British Columbia before (except a production at Studio 58 some time ago), this had the luxury of being a work of Shakespeare’s that no one not only has any pre-conceived notions about, hardly anyone knows it, period! You can do just about anything in the way of interpretation of the text, giving director Dean Paul Gibson [picture, left] a freedom afforded to few. Being as it was not a well-known piece, Shakespeare , and a professional company, this was an altogether different experience than was Long Day’s Journey Into Night
I worked. Oh, Lord, I worked!
I was ‘Mr. Dramaturge’ for this gig, constantly looking things up in the Shakespearean Lexicon, comparing the Arden Edition and our script, as well as the script that the Oregon Shakespearean Festival (Ashland) used in their production a few years ago. At one point I even ended-up writing a couple of lines (we had deleted a song of Pericles’, and King Simonides compliments him on it the next morning — we had him saying something neutral). Thankfully I didn’t realise that what I had done (re-write Shakespeare for crying out loud!) until after I had finished the task. And people wonder why there are discrepancies between different printing of the plays… And when someone had to go early, or was sick during a rehearsal, or was unavailable period, I either read in or stood on their marks for blocking purposes. Frankly, I didn’t know I could do that as a non-Equity member, but… I wasn’t paid for anything so perhaps that helped.
I had a wonderful time with that gig, and was treated with great respect and considered a contributing member of the company from day one, with Dean setting the example with out seeming to do so. Truly a wonderful bunch of people to work for and with. My only wish is that the rehearsal period had gone on longer, so that I might have spent more time with the process (plus the usual desire to rehearse more to find deeper interpretations and understandings).
I have made a decision about career-direction as well: I’m going to apply to Studio 58 for their fall 2004 semester. It seems like they’re the best option for me to take to not only increase the consistency of my performance, but also gain the training I have never received in any formal setting, other than the introductory classes I took with Robin Douglas [image, right] years ago: scene study, breathing, character work, monologues, finding the voice, audition technique, voice-over copy. All of that was great, especially coupled with the experience I got in all of the productions I did, but there is a greater understanding of being an actor that I have not yet gained. So, off to the basement of Langara I go, hopefully.
Interestingly, I thought about going to Studio 58 right out of high school, but decided that “the world already has enough ‘starving actors’”. Here I am, two decades later [painful groan as he realises this], considering the same thing but making a different choice. Clearly, I am ready for it now.
How will I afford the tuition? How will I pay for the summer periods? Will I stand the same futile chance of getting somewhere at the end as I do now (except I will have the certificate)? I have no idea. ‘The journey to success is take one step at a time’ as my fortune cookie told me at the meal I explained all of this to Dean. I didn’t need a confirmation sign from Dionysius, but I took it as such.
Ian Alexander Martin [
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